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 Maldon Hythe on a summer afternoon in about 1957. A glass plate by Douglas Went, used in The Sailors Coast, page 54, where John Leather writes:


Fully rigged auxiliary smacks line the waterside and an auxiliary barge waits to go on the blocks for refit at Walter Cook and Sons yard. A sailing barge from the mill lies beyond, against the town quay. Fishermen sit yarning on the river wall; men ...
Cat1 Smacks and Bawleys Cat2 Places-->Maldon

Maldon Hythe on a summer afternoon in about 1957. A glass plate by Douglas Went, used in The Sailors Coast, page 54, where John Leather writes:
Fully rigged auxiliary smacks line the waterside and an auxiliary barge waits to go on the blocks for refit at Walter Cook and Sons yard. A sailing barge from the mill lies beyond, against the town quay. Fishermen sit yarning on the river wall; men of the river, whose principal work was dredging oysters and beam trawling for flatfish within the River Blackwater. Their small smacks varied from the chubby, transom sterned example at the head of the line, to the narrow or beamy counter sterned cutters. Many were old West Mersea smacks, sold upriver when the owners bought larger, or gave up fishing. Sail lingered amongst Maldon fishermen until the 1960s, though all had a propeller tucked under the quarter after 1945, usually driven by an old car engine, to help them up and down the winding upper reaches in calms, or with a foul wind. Their successors were a nondescript collection of old motor shrimpers from Leigh, converted ships' boats and launches. Rowboats and gun punts lie on the hard, for the old Maldon fishing families of the Pitts, Claydons, Keebles, Handleys, Woodcrafts and many others are fond of winter wildfowling.
Smoke drifts from the chimney of Sadd's sawmills and the scene breathes the peace of a mid-week Essex waterside before sailing was popularised. [JL]
The nearest barge is NELLIE PARKER. Smack MN21 MAUD is bow-on in front of the NELLIE PARKER. The right-most smack is CK482 KINGFISHER with MN23 LIZZIE ANNIE in front of her. See also BOXB3_168_001_003
In the distance is a Morris Minor, which helps date the photograph. - see BOXB3_168_001_003.
The man on the left is Reg Pitt - my brother! From Elsie Pitt, 7 September 2012.


Date: c1957      

Photo: John Leather Collection - Douglas Went
Image ID BOXB5_017_044
Category 1 Smacks and Bawleys
Category 2 Places-->Maldon


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This image is part of the Mersea Museum Collection.